Poly Styrene “White Gold” - from 2011’s Generation Indigo.

2011’s best pop album so far was released by an iconic rock/pop/soul figure who sadly died of cancer on the eve of this album’s release. Pretending there is such a thing as ‘fate’, Fuck You ‘fate’ and the cancer you bring.

As far as the twenty-tens’ nu-disco generation ruled by the post-Killers/Rapture/Lady Gaga empire, this album obviously has an ear for that sound, as it’s the primary influence here. What’s rarer is that every song is written as a potential hit single. Some really stand out, such as “White Gold”, others are merely beautiful. The only exception might be “Thrash City” and the “Straight To Hell”/”Paper Planes” pseudo-cover “No Rockefeller.”

You will not hear the urgent and thrilling screams of Germ Free Adolescents era X-Ray Spex on this album at all.  Poly Styrene gave that sound up anyway just a year later since her first solo album from 1980, Translucence. You *will* hear the same wrapping of politics and inquisitiveness around very catchy music, however.

I’m still at a loss for words for the passing of Poly Styrene. I’ve felt married to her music at least a decade ago, when I dove hard into the X-Ray Spex and very undersized solo discography of Ms. Styrene.  Rest in peace.

Popular Shapes - “Symmetrical Girl” from 2003’s Bikini Style.

Seattle’s Popular Shapes came and went in a flash, when the band’s vocalist/guitarist left for San Francisco. Bikini Style was a barely 20+ minute 9 track explosion of pop-no-wave — recorded, mixed, and mastered by Kurt Bloch — that rivaled bands everywhere (Futureheads and Ex-Models included) for that No New York/early XTC/Talking Heads pop spaz sound of the late 70s. This album has a strong Fugazi odor all over as well. This seemed like a band that got bored really easily, and were ready to try brand new things before they released anything. They’re missed.

“Symmetrical Girl” would be their ‘hit’ of this album if there was a chance.

Cabaret Voltaire - Micro-Phonies (1984): Top #15 Industrial Album Art

“DIE U RIVETHEAD! CAB V STOPPED BEING RELEVANT ONCE WATSON LEFT, LEAVING US WITH SYNTH NEWAVE SHIT”

This is an exaggerated albeit not uncommon dismissal of most of Cabaret Voltaire’s output since they signed to Some Bizzare/Virgin — which is understandable.

Cabaret Voltaire had no equal from the 70s until the early 80s.  They were one of the few groups in the world creating home-built synthesizer music that had any assemblence to a rock or punk band in the late 70s. Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, The Screamers, and SPK were among their peers. And each of these groups left a unique influential stamp, to give credit.

While Cabaret Voltaire weren’t as personally confrontational in their earliest live performances as any of the above, their design was highly confrontational.  Instead of exhibiting human rage, they infiltrated people and the media — sampling news media through tapes (and later via sampler.)  In the 2002 music documentary Made In Sheffield, there is footage of Cabaret Voltaire performing live in the back of a moving van, an example of their D.I.Y. aesthetic that — paraphrasing the documentary — was initially inspired by punk, or the spirit thereof.

For experimental electronic music, be it Industrial or other genres, they were like the Velvet Underground (whom they covered then, coincidentally.) While not wildly popular in their earliest days on Rough Trade, many fans went on to become inspired by their earliest work and make their own, especially other musicians in their home base of Sheffield, England — ranging from future members of The Human League, Heaven 17, and ABC.  Mark E. Smith of The Fall champions this period of Cabaret Voltaire to this day.

Their key release and best, however, was the transitional 2X45, released in 1982. Christopher Watson had just left the group. Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder decided to “funk” it up, literally — stressing the quotes.

Without the piercing raw synthesizer textures of Watson (and instead, organ and tapes on half of the tracks), Kirk and Mallinder produced six tracks of extended dark funk-influenced rock. The vocals were heavily echoed growls from hell - with less classic industrial effect treatment. This wasn’t funk-rock as much as one amazing artifact of what’s now called post-punk and Industrial.  If one wanted to purchase the gateway to the roots of the early Ministry, Revolting Cocks, and Skinny Puppy, 2X45 is the one.

Their next phase into droney electronic dance music, i.e. The Virgin Years, should be primarily credited to American dance producer John Robie, who approached Cabaret Voltaire with a dance remix of “Yashar” (originally on 2 X 45.) According to the Ken Hollings article and interview in the 2002 Futurist issue of The Wire, Kirk and Mallinder initially weren’t keen on the idea, instead sending Robie two new tracks. Robie rejected them back, and insisted on showing Cabaret Voltaire how to properly do “Yashar.” — “properly” according to John Robie, anyway.

Robie’s remix must have won Cabaret Voltaire over, because they would essentially take inspiration from John Robie and Arthur Baker’s trick book for the next few years, signing onto a deal with Some Bizzare Records via Virgin Records, with Some Bizzare’s Stevo being an early fan of the group. The Virgin Years, in fairness, should be called the Some Bizzare years.

One of the elements in their major label deal that didn’t change was employing record designer Neville Brody.  Brody had first worked with Cabaret Voltaire on their 3 Crépuscle Tracks single from 1981.

Brody’s first commercially successful sleeve work is most certainly Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” single.  However, he had worked with Cabaret Voltaire more than any other group. Brody’s aesthetic of randomly placed shapes, limited color palette, high saturation, grainy swarthy background figures, and sharp-edge fonts could be co-opted by other designers of future Industrial/electronic music releases, perhaps Sheffield’s The Designers Republic — whose Ian Anderson stated in the liner notes to Cabaret Voltaire’s Conform To Deform collection, paraphrasing, “without Cabaret Voltaire, there would be no Designers Republic!”

Brody’s best work was certainly 1984’s Micro-Phonies. The cover design both set it firmly in the 80’s, while remaining iconic for far longer.

(Credit is due to the music design blog Hard Format whose entry on this album was invaluable to this post, and sourced the Micro-Phonies images.)

Since their earliest work, Cabaret Voltaire were sampling American evangelists. Religion is a topic covered throughout the group’s music. Micro-Phonies’ art exhibited this most directly. The font used for the band’s name makes heavy use of Gothic arches.  The elongated arches throughout the artwork in combination with the plus-signs hint at ancient architecture more subtlely, inferring religious architecture since churches in Western society typically are the oldest buildings.

The giant juxtaposition in the front cover is the person with a mummified face in the background, with some sort of device on a string dangling from his or her mouth (presumably a microphone?)  Original artwork is credited to London artist Phil Barnes — no relation to the celebrity sportsman of a similar name.  While unclear, the human on the album cover is perhaps a photograph by Barnes. Its grainy quality immediately brings to mind footage of hostages on TV.

Micro-Phonies produced two great singles, “Sensoria” and “James Brown.” However, it’s the weakest album in their Some Bizzare years, and the weakest until 1990’s Groovy Laidback And Nasty. “Do Right” is downright annoying as an opening track, overusing The Sampler — which unfortunately poisons the 12” version of “Sensoria” throughout. With the exception of “The Operative”, the remaining tracks don’t leave a lasting impression compared to the singles and their B-sides.

Cabaret Voltaire’s best albums of this phase were actually what followed: the trebly and downright regressive The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord from 1985, and their definitive Adrian Sherwood-produced pop album Code from 1987 — all of whose art was designed by Neville Brody.

However, Brody’s (and Barnes’s) work on Micro-Phonies stands the test of time. The primary image has been reused by future Cabaret Voltaire compilations, albeit removing most of Brody’s original design touches.

…

P.S. You would think I would forget that poster in 1987’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?  You’re nuts!  I even remember the short-lived TV series of the same name! The only thing I remember from that pilot episode was the Micro-Phonies poster, which remained as prominent as in the original flick — perhaps the only thing that remained intact.

#16 <— #15 —> #14?

Cabaret Voltaire - “Sensoria (12” mix)” (1984 - original on Micro-Phonies)

While there are many styles Cabaret Voltaire were incorporating in their mid 80s period on Virgin Records, they were creating just as many subtle styles.  (More on that in a bit…)

New Order - “Are You Ready Are You Ready Are Your Ready For This (Western Works Demo, September 7, 1980)”.

This very fine post by the Power Of Independent Trucking blog explains it all.  In a nutshell, these are the earliest demos of New Order, from early September, 1980. 

A few months earlier, while they were still Joy Division, they were friends and admirers of Cabaret Voltaire. Apparently, they had booked this time to do some demos for the followup to Closer.  After Ian’s death, the context of the demos had completely changed. New Order, a resultant 3-piece, had to figure out what they were going to do next.  The six song demo reel that came from these sessions shows all three members of New Order taking lead on vocals on these late Joy Division and now earliest New Order tracks.

Presented here is the one track that never made it to any future New Order in any version in any way, for good reason. It was New Order doing their take on Cabaret Voltaire at the time — quite accurately. Vocals were done by then New Order manager Rob Gretton, according to the recollection of a member of New Order.

“Are You Ready Are You Ready Are You Ready For This” is not a significant track on its own, but it does show a grossly underrated aesthetic crossing of paths between New Order and Cabaret Voltaire.

Years later, it would be New Order that would have the biggest influence on subsequent Cabaret Voltaire circa 2 X 45, “Yashar”, and the Virgin years — notably Stephen Mallinder’s bass playing being quite similar to Peter Hook’s.

New Order took away something from Cabaret Voltaire as well, as witnessed on their earliest studio material, such as Movement’s “I.C.B.” featuring many punctuated bleeps and bloops. New Order would release their first electronic pop single, “Everything’s Gone Green”, shortly after, paving the way for The New Order Sound, for lack of a better term.  Without those Western Works demos, however, it’s safe to say no one would have clue which direction New Order would go.

Nurse With Wound - Rock ‘N Roll Station (1994): Top #16 Industrial Album Art

This is the only Nurse With Wound album I own, not because there aren’t other excellent albums, but there are too many other excellent Nurse With Wound albums. I say that based on raw probability and mathematics. Nurse With Wound have a discography size that rivals those of Elvis Presley or The Fall.  Chances dictate that if one likes one Nurse With Wound album, one will like at least another dozen. And I’ve yet to afford an opportunity to dive in.

While Nurse With Wound — or Steve Stapleton, the group’s ringleader — reject being called an Industrial for good reason — bearing only a mild resemblance to early Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire at most, they certainly owe Industrial’s past prominence to their current fan base, as it was the first genre to give the group their first fans.

Where does one start with a critically acclaimed group caked in mystery that has released more than 40 albums, and over 60 releases overall? It’s like asking “I’m a new traveler to Europe. Which city attraction do I start with?”, except even more vague than that.

The answer is predictable: ask your closest Nurse With Wound loving contact.  This is what I did in the mid 90s. After asking my friend Chris (still one of my best friends), he recommended me Rock ‘N Roll Station.  I bought it a week later. After a decade or more, the album had finally grown on me. Or as likely the case, the rest of the world had caught up with Rock ‘N Roll Station by the mid 2000s.

Only hearing samples of other Nurse With Wound albums, I can only recommend Rock ‘N Roll Station particularly for its continuity, theme, slow minimal beats, ambiance, and being a relatively relaxing sum of its parts. 

The album and title track were inspired by the Jac Berrocal track from 1976 of the same name (YouTube link). The Nurse With Wound cover that begins the album is amazingly faithful to the original song, and works as an intro to the rest of the album, which sounds like a musique concrète album made much more playful.

The biggest reason Rock ‘N Roll Station feels far more mid 2000s than any other time is because this is when both mainstream and underground hip hop had peaked in its experimental nature.  Steve Stapleton has been verbal about hip hop’s experimentation — perhaps giddy about it, so much that he has promised a Nurse With Wound hip hop album (link c/o The Big Takeover) as a result. It remains in the backburner, but there is still word that it’s slated for release.

While he talks mainly about female hip hop artists, Missy Elliott in particular, in the above interview, one track by the popular hip hop duo Ying Yang Twins, “Wait (The Whisper Song)” — a Top 20 track in the USA, and a Top 5 R&B track, circa 2005 — has come closest to approximating the overall groove of Rock ‘N Roll Station.

Compare Nurse With Wound’s “The Sufficient Sexual Shoe” from Rock ‘N Roll Station (YouTube link)…

…with Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (The Whisper Song)” (YouTube link - NSFW).

“Wait (The Whisper Song)” is certainly a faster, crisper sounding track than the slower and more distorted “The Sufficient Sexual Shoe.” However, there’s an undeniable similarity between the two tracks. In fact, the Nurse With Wound track has a lot more in common than “Wait” with slower tempo bass-centric hip hop tracks one can hear booming from a car, rattling its blown woofers.

This similarity isn’t a revelation at all. For example, a review of Rock ‘N Roll Station on Fakejazz regarding the album’s 2006 reissue (on Beta-Lactam Ring Records) mentions the hip hop similarity without making a big deal out of it. However, it is bizarre and somewhat thrilling that hip hop has reached a point where a track that would have been considered “unmusical” by most labels, major or independent, could chart as high as it did— much like the music industry today being neutralized to the point of conjoining the underground with the mainstream in total sales, much to everyone’s confusion and horror.

My Nurse With Wound loving fan and friend Chris would still admit to this day that part of the fun of being a Nurse With Wound fan is exploring more albums, and getting back more questions than answers from them all.

The main reason I went ahead with Chris’s suggestion of Rock ‘N Roll Station 15 years ago was its artwork.  While it’s far easier to count the number of Nurse With Wound albums that don’t have amazing artwork than the ones that do, there was the appeal of seeing a small colorful flower-person with a splattered red smile lurking underneath a crowd of tall dark eye-figures, which described exactly how I felt trying to get into Nurse With Wound. Whatever I imagined what the little flower guy was doing on the front cover of the album, it was doing it with curiosity, naivety, excitement, and most importantly, patience.

#17 <— #16 —> #15

Buzzcocks - “I Believe” LIVE circa 1979/1980.  Probably my fave Buzzcocks song because of both the metronomic bass at the end of each verse, and the strained elevating bridge (“There is. No. Love. In. This. World. A.-ny. Mooooooooore.”)

A Slits video filmed at the same location as a Coil album cover? Highly probable.

In the Top 20 Industrial Album Art countdown I’m doing (with a current pause due to recovering a failed hard drive), I posted Coil’s Horse Rotorvator as #19, and provided some information about the possibly iconic bandstand in Hyde Park featured on that album, and also the site of an IRA bombing on July 20th, 1982.

The Slits’ “Typical Girls” video (from 1979’s Cut) was filmed at a bandstand that looks very much like the one described above, however pre-IRA Bombing, pre-Coil album, by a few years.

Hyde Park is a very central park in London, so if this Slits video was filmed at that bandstand in that location, this wouldn’t be an earth shattering fact. However, watching this video, which is highly absurd in the best way, it casts this Hyde Park bandstand in a completely opposite light as it did in the rebuilt post-bombing context of the Coil album.

Wire “Eardrum Buzz (single version)” from 1989. Wire’s biggest hit. Tons of cameos! Wire at their wackiest!  Colin almost Stooge-esque! (As in The Three Stooges, not the, um, Stooges.) Graham with a military cut, sans mullet! Bruce with a hat, wig, makeup, shades, and tambourine!  Robert Gotobed being very Gotobed.  And one of the best prototypes of modern indie pop ever recorded.

KUKL’s “Outward Flight (Psalm 323)” from 1986’s Holidays In Europe (The Naughty Nought)

KUKL were the best collective that ever had both Björk Guðmundsdóttir and Einar Örn Benediktsson. The first album from 1984, The Eye — originally released by Crass — was terrifying and beautiful.  The second album, Holidays In Europe (The Naughty Nought) was much calmer and even stranger.  It’s hard to imagine that just a year before this band called Sugarcubes broke the world with their single “Birthday”, two of its prime members were deep into a Henry Cow phase in their previous band.

Let’s also give credit to the video director here. The power of electrical tape on naked body parts is underrated. The video ends with an extended interview with Einar.

Björk in Tappi Tíkarrass doing “Hrollur” from 1982’s music/video documentary Rokk í Reykjavík

Q4U “Creeps”. Female-led Icelandic punk group circa 1981. “Creeps”, their relative hit, does sound a lot like Kraftwerk’s “The Model”. However, the lyrics are quite different. And Kraftwerk never had a teabagging drawing in the back of their video for “The Model”.

Þeyr’s “Blood” (from 1982’s The Fourth Reich EP)

The 1982 Icelandic live rockumentary Rokk í Reykjavík is still one of the best geographically cathartic rock compilations ever made. One of many great bands that were featured were the band Þeyr (pronounced “thair”.) Much like its geographic opposite New Zealand, Iceland had a punk scene inspired mainly by early 80s bands such as Joy Division, Killing Joke, and Siouxsie & The Banshees.

However, looking at the video, this band looks like a prototype of Sun City Girls fronted by Dave Vanian!

“Which Way To Go” by Austin, TX punk group Big Boys from their final album from 1984, No Matter How Long The Line At The Cafeteria Is There Is Always A Seat.

No major thoughts aside from how little people talk about Big Boys these days, especially when Austin TX has become the yearly music conference hotspot.  Not that bands of past always have to be brought up at these events — quite the opposite. Still, rumination is always an element whenever hordes of music fans get together, so the silence regarding Big Boys is mystifying to me. They were like Minutemen good.  I consider the two bands spiritual brothers in many ways.

The death of Alex Chilton last week would have understandably muted many musings of any past bands, for obvious reasons.

World Domination Enterprises’ cover of U Roy’s “Jah Jah Call You” from the band’s one and only full-lengther, Let’s Play Domination (1988) is one of the few gutteral rock covers, or just rock covers, of a reggae song that awes instead of irritates.

While World Domination Enterprises were hardly a serious rock band in regards to their covers, they respected “Jah Jah Call You” enough to give it a steady, full treatment, showcasing everything best about the band: the rusty-nails-on-a-chalkboard guitar solo, the detuned bass, the heavily reverbed drums, and the nasal vocal delivery.

“Sum Of The Parts” applies heavily here. Oh yeah, the original songs on the rest of the album are this great as well, mostly much faster.  Now if only the LL Cool J and Lipps Inc. covers were this good.